Underhill ward councillors have expressed their surprise and disappointment on behalf of local residents after the Chair of the Planning Committee, Cllr Melvin Cohen, refused to defer consideration of the re-application by the Ark Academy to place a new secondary school on the site of the former Underhill Stadium.

Cllr Edwards had written to the Chair asking for the application to be deferred to the Planning Committee meeting next month after discovering it would be heard in just a week's time on 25 October.

Councillor Paul Edwards said: “Each of the Underhill councillors has received a massive quantity of adverse comments about this proposed new school application. The council’s website records over 500 comments on this application. To give local residents just eight days notice of such a major and clearly controversial planning application is just not in the interests of fairness and democracy. At Wednesday night’s Planning Committee we shall again be asking for deferral of this highly contentious planning application.”